Dev Update 29.01.2015

Hi everyone,

For this week’s dev update the focus is on the 1.1 update which will go into beta next week. First we have some good news for explorers. We’re adding the discovered by tag to the system map so when you view a body’s information you will see which commander first scanned and returned to sell the data for that body. Supplementing this we’re also adding information when you sell exploration data of the bodies contained within the exploration data being sold for a specific system. There’s also a change to enable selling exploration data a page at a time to help those who have been on long journeys of exploration!

In last week’s update I mentioned the community goals feature which will be added in the 1.1 update. Here we have two specific examples of what we will be doing with those goals. The first is a minor faction seeking to expand their military capability by constructing a capital ship (one of Farragut Battlecruisers or Majestic Interdictors) which is obviously a huge undertaking so they’ll require a lot of support and resources to successfully construct the warship. The commander who contributes the most to the construction will have the opportunity to name the ship. We’ll need to vet the name of course :-)

One of the other community goals will be a more involved process enabling the expansion into an unpopulated system. This will be a three stage process. The first step is for us and the DDF to establish a short list of candidate systems. The aim for this initial colony is to support further exploration and to act as a hub for other expansion in the region. Once we have the shortlist players will be invited to map the candidate systems and whichever system has the most data about it sold will be the target system. A community goal will then start to gather the resources needed to build an Ocellus starport that will be deployed in the chosen star system.

As well as the new features we’re continuing to fix and investigate issues, some fix highlights include improvements for AI docking and the docking computer, better handling of ship to ship collisions, balancing dumbfire missiles and shield cells and balancing of heat generation by weapons.

Last week I shouted out about the community news item thread and that is off to a good start with some stories already being used. If you have a community event in game or something newsworthy then you can submit it via this thread:

What counts as 'discovery' in terms of exploration? Is it simply selling the data anywhere > 20ly from where it was collected? Obviously, you need to dock somewhere to sell it. Also, I assume it is 'galaxy-global' i.e., you sell it to the Pilots Federation, not to the Empire or the Alliance or the Federal Government?

In last week’s update I mentioned the community goals feature which will be added in the 1.1 update. Here we have two specific examples of what we will be doing with those goals. The first is a minor faction seeking to expand their military capability by constructing a capital ship (one of Farragut Battlecruisers or Majestic Interdictors) which is obviously a huge undertaking so they’ll require a lot of support and resources to successfully construct the warship. The commander who contributes the most to the construction will have the opportunity to name the ship. We’ll need to vet the name of course :-)

What counts as 'discovery' in terms of exploration? Is it simply selling the data anywhere > 20ly from where it was collected? Obviously, you need to dock somewhere to sell it. Also, I assume it is 'galaxy-global' i.e., you sell it to the Pilots Federation, not to the Empire or the Alliance or the Federal Government?

You have to sell it to Universal Cartographics to register what you've found. The first person to do so will be marked as the discoverer. You can still sell the data even if you are not the first.

Great stuff! Thanks for the update.
I may be needing more coffee, but can you clarify this:

I think it means if Cmdr A discovers the system but Cmdr B actually scans down the bodies, then the bodies will have Cmdr B's name as the discoverer, it will be the excuse to actually stop and scan things down in a system